The Scots in Shetland and the English in Scotland As a Construction and As Individuals
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The Scots in Shetland and the English in Scotland as a Construction and as Individuals Atina L. K. Nihtinen1 Abstract The article reconsiders some of the issues presented in the author’s doctoral dissertation and reflects on the ways in which the uses of history have created different meanings depending on political changes at national and regional levels in Scottish and wider British contexts. For example, the meaning of ‘the Scots in Shetland’ has changed in recent decades as a result of changes in political and economic circumstances. The English in Scotland have often been omitted from historiography in Scotland and it is only now, against the background of growing nationalism, that the case has been reconsidered. This has raised questions regarding the structural invisibility and homogenity of such groups. The article shows the complexity of making use of nationality as a criterion to explain ethno- cultural perceptions in British contexts and suggests an emphasis on distinctions between individual experiences and constructed images of national and regional identities. In Shetland we have perhaps traditionally viewed ourselves as being not quite Scottish. (Did our more distant ancestors feel the same about Norway?) Ironically, it could be argued that we are Scotland in a kind of microcosm. Like the bigger version, over the centuries, our islands have become home to a wide and varied selection of peoples, a true melting pot. The last 20 years of oil-driven immigration are but the latest chapter in a long running saga. And in many Shetland communities it is people who started life in England who are now seeking to make this their home. (‘Da Wadder Eye’ 1998, 27) The above statement of a local commentator in Shetland remarks that although Shetlanders have traditionally viewed themselves as ‘not quite Scottish’, it could be argued that Shetland is ‘Scotland in a kind of microcosm’. Further in the article the author comments on the relation between England and Scotland by remarking that ‘Scotland must forget England as an adversary’ and that the best advice is to ‘treat people as individuals and value them for their qualities’. The present article is partly based on my doctoral dissertation Ambivalent Self-Understanding? Change, language and boundaries in the Shetland Islands (1970–present). In my doctoral dissertation I examined nationalism and regional consciousness in Shetland with a main focus on the uses of history and language as creators of 1 I am grateful to the two anonymous reviewers for helpful comments on a previous version of this article. Atina Nihtinen, Åbo Akademi, [email protected] Studia Celtica Fennica XII (2015), 49–61. ISSN 1795-097X, ©Finnish Society for Celtic Studies Atina L. K. Nihtinen boundaries of difference and belonging in relation to mainland Scotland. Regional consciousness (or regional identity), as opposed to region’s identity, was defined as referring to the ways in which the inhabitants of a region experience the history of the region, its specific characteristics and relations to all other areas of society (see e.g. Paasi 1996). Region’s identity, on the other hand, is defined as referring to the historical construction of a region. Furthermore, individual’s identification is dependent on situation and context. How one sees oneself and is seen by others is a process which interacts with the way in which regional and national identities are constructed and understood. Another question which should be taken into consideration when examining the above groups from the perspective of nationalism is that nineteenth-century nationalism in most European countries was different from the nationalist discourses in British contexts. Graeme Morton (Morton 1999, 9) has argued, through the concept of unionist nationalism, that in nineteenth-century Scotland civil society replaced the absence of parliamentary and governmental independence. In history writing Scottish nationalism was seen as weak or non-existent because of the equation of nations and nation-states. In other words, Scotland the nation had not become Scotland the nation-state and, although there was debate around a Scottish Parliament in the 1880s and 1890s, the prevailing context was British and imperial. Nineteenth-century unionist nationalism and the role of the British Empire have shaped the relationship between England and Scotland in a way which has been increasingly reassessed since the 1970s. During the last four decades both the relation between England and Scotland, and between regions within Scotland, have been affected by the discovery and impact of North Sea oil, the development of oil industries in the region and the re-establishment of the Scottish Parliament. Apart from questions such as the relationship between England and Scotland, and between mainland Britain and the Northern Isles, also various ways of ‘being English’ and ‘being Scottish’ have been constructed and mobilised by different political and social forces. As put by David McCrone, ‘Scotland’ is not simply what you want it to mean, and the same applies to regions as Shetland, for example. There is a complex interaction between social processes and cultural meanings (McCrone 2001, 3). The present article considers some of the ways in which historians and sociologists (including also sociologists of language) have contributed to the cultural construction of difference in Scottish contexts. The first three sections discuss the changing meaning of ‘the Scots in Shetland’ as connected to socio- political change and the reassessment of language history. As the question of ‘the English in Scotland’ has been also recently reconsidered and includes regions such as Shetland, its inclusion in the fourth section highlights the complexity of defining such groups. The subject is much wider than can be presented in one article. For 50 The Scots in Shetland and the English in Scotland as a Construction and as Individuals that reason, I have focused here on the main issues which could also be a subject for further investigation and discussion. The changing meaning of ‘the Scots in Shetland’ Shetland’s insularity and geographical remoteness have influenced both the ways in which Shetlanders have viewed themselves and have been viewed by others. At present, Shetland is part of Scotland and the United Kingdom. During the medieval period, however, the isles were governed by Norway although they were also closely connected to the Scottish kingdom (Øien 2005, 80). In 1469 Shetland was pledged by King Christian I of Denmark and Norway to King James III of Scotland as part of a wedding dowry and the islands were never redeemed. Norwegian interest in the Northern Isles gradually weakened and during the Scottish rule contacts with Scandinavia diminished whereas those with mainland Scotland grew in importance. Since the fifteenth century Shetland was incorporated in the Scottish kingdom and joined the political entity of Great Britain in 1707 together with the rest of Scotland. The cultural characteristics of the Shetlanders as a somewhat separate group of people developed during the nineteenth century but this took place within both Scottish and wider British contexts. The origins of images and perceptions of distinctiveness can be found in the emergence of the Udal League, created by London-based Orcadian Alfred W. Johnson (see e.g. Seibert 2008, 128). The term ‘Udal’ refers to Udal Law, the Norse legal system. Central to the philosophy of the cultural movement was the idealisation of Norse legal and governmental structures and the cultural and linguistic heritage of the Norse. Connected from the very beginning to issues such as land ownership, its ideology entailed both class issues and ethnic overtones. Ethnicity was a central element of differentiation from the landowners, most of whom were Scots (see e.g. Renwanz 1980, 334). Resentment of landlordism was combined with idealisation of ‘the old times’—Orkney’s and, respectively, Shetland’s Norse past—and led to increasing search for cultural roots. The spread of ideas had become wider in the second half of the nineteenth century and the writings of Shetland intellectuals received extensive coverage in the press: they were both written by Shetlanders and intended for Shetland audiences. Shetland’s first newspaper, Shetland Journal, was produced in London in 1862, and this was followed by the Shetland Times, which took a strong position on the need for Land Reform. The year of the Crofter Holdings Act, 1886, saw the publication of another weekly paper, the Shetland News. The fascination with the Norse was racially-based romanticism, without serious impact on political life (see e.g. Brown 1998, 58). Its ideas were nevertheless intertwined with a tendency to ignore or reject the Scottish contribution to Shetland society (e.g. Cohen 1983, 491). The end of the nineteenth century was a period of social and economic 51 Atina L. K. Nihtinen change as well as of general atmosphere of freedom from earlier practices. In 1889 the Local Government (Scotland) Act established Zetland County Council as representative body to be elected by the Shetland population itself. Apart from the cultural construction of Shetland as Norse, from the 1880s new streets and housing estates in Lerwick were given Norse names. Apart from the end of the nineteenth century when distinctiveness was connected to ideas of racial and ethnic separation, the emphasis on Shetland culture was above all cultural, but Shetland intellectuals continued to perceive Shetland as a culturally distinct entity. In the 1970s, a new economic and political situation in the isles stimulated the use of Norse history and historical links with Norway to a greater extent than ever before. Already in the 1960s Shetland’s economic situation looked relatively bright (Donald 1983, 203); yet the discovery of oil in the 1970s was followed by even greater prosperity and the isles were thriving in comparison to most of their twentieth century history. The Zetland County Council Act was passed by parliament in 1974, handing over to the local council full control over all developments around the isles and enabling the development of considerable oil funds over the following years.